Biometric authentication that has been present in computers for quite some time seems to now be foraying into the smartphone segment too.
Samsung has lately been working on developing a lot of new features for their lineup of phone, with eye tracking being the recent most addition to the Galaxy S4 phones. Now, according to a SamMobile, an avid enthusiast found some images within the SecSettings.apk at SecSettingsresdrawable-hdpi, a section that seems to pertain to the security settings of the device.
The images show a fingerprint scanning method, but it’s more of a graphic representation rather than a diagram of how it would be implemented. While this shows that Samsung has definitely experimented with biometric methods of security, hopes that it will make it into an upcoming phone are slim. The reason for that happens to be the fact that the file was picked off of a Samsung Galaxy S3, and is therefore more likely to be something “left-over” from an experiment rather than a final, finished product.
Samsung isn’t the only company to be playing around with biometric authentication, as Apple had last year purchased Authentec, a company known for its biometric security sensors in computing devices. However, Apple is known to acquire companies and keeps them till whenever they deem the time is right to implement them. Apple launched the iPhone 5 without any biometric security, which sort of shows that it’s possible that smartphones aren’t yet ready to include biometric security, the reasons for which could be anything from form-factor limitations to battery. Regardless, it would be nice to see a solid form of authentication make it into our smartphones as the current pass-codes have become rather easy to bypass.
Source: Slashgear